The Hindu : International : Ahmadinejad calls for a baby boom

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 26, 2006
ePaper

International

International

Ahmadinejad calls for a baby boom

Robert Tait

Women's main mission is raising children: President

Tehran: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for a baby boom to almost double the country's population to 120 million and enable it to threaten the West, as he boasted that the country's nuclear capacity had increased ``ten-fold.''

Mr. Ahmadinejad told MPs he wanted to scrap birth control policies that discourage Iranian couples from having more than two children. Women should work less and devote more time to their ``main mission'' of raising children, he said.

His comments amounted to an attack on official policies sanctioned by senior Islamic clerics that are aimed at limiting Iran's population, currently around 70 million. The Government backs birth control measures including female sterilisation, vasectomies and mandatory family planning classes for newly-weds. Iran also has a state-owned condom factory.

Mr. Ahmadinejad said: ``I am against saying two children are enough. Our country has a lot of capacity. It has the capacity for many children to grow in it. It even has the capacity for 120 million people. Westerners have got problems.

"Because their population growth is negative they are worried and fear that if our population increases, we will triumph over them.''

He said he wanted to bring in legislation reducing women's working hours based on how many children they had. Women could work part-time on full-time salaries, he said. Critics reacted with alarm and said the President's call was ill-judged at a time when Iran is struggling with surging inflation and rising unemployment, unofficially estimated at around 25 per cent.

The reformist Etemad-e Melli newspaper warned that Iran could pay a high price for such ``ill-considered'' comments.

Population explosion

``He stresses the necessity of population growth and the triumph of Iran over Western Governments, ignoring the fact that what leads to such triumph is not population size but knowledge, technology, wealth, welfare and security.''

Mr. Ahmadinejad's call echoes a similar demand by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after the Islamic revolution in 1979.

The policy led to a population explosion but was reversed because of the strain on the economy, and population growth dropped from an all-time high of 3.2 per cent in 1986 to around 1.2 per cent today, similar to that of the United States.

Separately, at a rally outside Tehran, the President boasted that Western efforts to rein in Iran's nuclear programme had failed.

``They should know that today, the capability of our nation has multiplied 10-fold over the same period last year,'' he was quoted as saying. —

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

International